The last week has been a difficult one for South Arkansas College.
The Stars were swept in three games in Mississippi before falling to Panola (Texas) College 10-6 on Tuesday.
On Saturday, SouthArk (5-6) will try to get back on track when they host Twin City Post Grad for a doubleheader.
Game time is set for noon.
“I figure they will be tough,” SouthArk coach Cannon Lester said. “They’ll have a lot of young guys just like us. They’ll have some guys that maybe we’ll try to recruit.”
In Mississippi, the Stars lost twice in lopsided fashion to St. Charles (Mo.) along with a 10-4 loss to East Central (Miss.), which joined SouthArk in the Division II World Series last year.
“It was a great venue there in a small town,” Lester said of the trip to Mississippi. “St. Charles went to the regional championship last year against Crowder and they returned everybody. They just pounded the ball against us.
“I didn’t think we pitched it terribly, but they just hit it better. East Central was a team that went to the World Series. It was 5-4 going into the seventh inning, and they put together two big innings against us. We went down to Panola and it was kind of the same thing. We gave up a couple of big innings, tried to come back and we couldn’t add anything on late.”
The Stars have surrendered 10 or more runs in each of their last seven games, but Lester said there were several reasons for SouthArk’s struggles.
“It’s kind of a mixture of everything,” Lester said. “I think it starts on the mound, and we’re starting to figure that out a little bit. On the defensive side, we’re not playing very good defense.
“Offensively, it’s not going great either, so it’s one of those things right now that we’ve hit a hard patch and we’re going to see how tough we are. We play Saturday, but it doesn’t get any easier next week either. We’ve got to stay tough and we’ve got to keep working. There’s a lot we need to work on.”
Lester said Brett Foss and Ryan Ursery would start the games on Saturday, although Foss will be on a strict pitch count as he tries to build strength after an illness.
“He’s still under the weather,” Lester said of Foss. “He’s lost 20 pounds. He’s feeling better, but we’ve got to bring him back slowly. I don’t think he’s going to be where he was for a while.
“He was up to 93 (mph) at Christmas, and now he’s 84, 85. We’ll probably go 30, 40 pitches with him. Ursery has been one of our more consistent arms. We hope to get a lot of guys in there. We’re still searching for things a little bit.”
Although the pitching staff has struggled, Lester still has plenty of confidence in them.
“We’ve got a lot of good arms,” Lester said. “We’ve got to keep fighting. I really like our pitching still. For the most part besides Foss, they’re staying healthy. That’s the good part. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot of good there going on that side of the ball. Hopefully, we’ll get through this stretch.”
Lester said one change that could be in the offing is moving John Demcher to the bullpen.
“I think we’re probably going to move Demcher to the bullpen,” Lester said. “He’s probably a little more suited (there). He’s got electric stuff. We’ve just got to get him going because the stuff is real. As we start to get closer to conference, there’s going to be a lot of matchups, a little more major-league style. We haven’t done that before, and honestly, we’re not real good at it as a coaching staff because we’ve never had that luxury before, so we’re trying to find ways to insert guys and who’s best against who and what matchups. We’re still trying to get a read on them.”
On the injury front, Lester said he received positive news on freshman shortstop Kenner Lauterbach.
“I think we got some pretty good news on Kenner this week,” Lester said. “In the next week or two, he’s going to come back. We think when he comes back, we feel a lot better defensively because we can move some guys back to where they should be. I think that stabilizes our infield, which we really need. I think that helps our pitching staff out because they know if they get a ground ball to the shortstop for a 6-4-3, it’s going to get turned with him there.”
Lester also said that freshman left-hander Bryce Lopez could make his debut next weekend when SouthArk makes another trip to Mississippi.
“He threw to a couple of batters on Wednesday in practice,” Lester said. “He looked good and said he felt good. We’re probably not going to throw him this weekend, but he’ll probably be available to throw an inning or two next weekend.
“That will be huge because he’s got swing-and-miss stuff that we don’t have right now. If you need a strikeout, he can go get it. He might not be ready for that role, but he’s going to get plenty of it when he gets back. He’ll be a big piece to come back.”
Lester said he has spent the last few days since Tuesday’s game against Panola evaluating where things stand.
“You go through stretches like this, you definitely start to question stuff and try re-evaluate some things,” Lester said. “I heard something a long time ago that when it’s going good, it’s probably not as good as you think, and when it’s going bad, it’s not as bad as you think. I’m hoping that’s true because it feels pretty bad right now.
“You look at some of the numbers teams have put up against us offensively. We’ve gotten into holes early, and I think it’s really hard for us to play out of that right now. We’re not quite ready for that as a team.
“We need to put up some zeros early and make double plays. If we stay in the game early, we’re fine. At Panola, we got down 7-1 and came back to make it 7-6.
“I was like, ‘OK, we’re ready to pull through,’ and they brought in a guy and he dominates. We brought in a guy late, but we brought him in a little too late. We went through six pitchers, and the sixth one got it done when it should’ve been the third or fourth guy. We’re still looking for those roles and throwing a lot of guys.
“That’s the good part. There’s been some guys that have gotten some innings and have thrown a lot. We’ve got to land a few more pitches for strikes and compete a little bit more in the zone. We’re doing better with that. On the offensive side, we’ve just got to string at-bats together. There’s a lot to work on for sure.”
One tidbit that Lester has discussed with the team is to keep progressing and not press.
“We definitely brought up last year,” Lester said. “Last year at this time, Foss wasn’t even traveling yet. We were around .500, just hovering around there. I think we have played quite a bit better schedule at the beginning for sure. With that in mind, I think they’re good. We haven’t pressed the panic button yet. We’ve just got to keep pressing forward. I think our best days are ahead of us, we’ve just got to keep learning. We need it to be a little bit more rapid that what it’s been. Hopefully, we’ll keep showing up, keep laying that foundation and it will start to click a little bit.”
Although the Stars had a tough week, there were some bright spots.
Sophomore catcher Jacob Ambriz, and All-Region performer last year, hit a pair of home runs in Mississippi.
“We faced two Division-I arms on that first day, and he homers off both of them,” Lester said. “That was good to see because he’s a good hitter and he had been pressing a little bit.”
Lester singled out several others for their play.
“Gabe Kuttenkuler has been steady this whole time and Ty Simonelli is really coming along,” Lester said. “His numbers don’t look great, but he has been hammering balls. I think we’re going to give him a chance toward the top of the lineup this weekend. We need a few more guys to step up. Ambriz has a thing going on with his knee right now, so he’s mainly DH’ing.
“Gavin Murphy has really stepped in catching-wise. He’s a really good blocker, he’s tough and I think our guys like throwing to him. He’s done really good and the bat is starting to come along. He was a really good hitter in the fall. I think if we can get (Kyle) Tolley going and keep Dawson Szymanski going, they can be really electric. We need to put some pieces around that.”